15 minutes with Matt Steinmetz

What year did you graduate from Bluffton High School?

I graduated from BHS in 2002.

Where are you living now and what is your occupation? You don't happen to own the tattoo parlor in Columbus were all the football players hang out, do you?

My wife and I are living in Columbus, where she attends OSU and I teach middle school Spanish for Columbus City Schools. The tattoo parlor is not mine, but I have been trading the players guitar lessons for old helmets.

How many bands were you in while you were a student at BHS and what were those band names?

Ha! Well, I may have to phone-in a little help on this one, suffice to say that there were many, and they were all fantastic, cough. All, however, were comprised of me, Ben Gundy, and Josh Weaver, with a rotating host of other colorful local characters such as Andy Edinger, Kelsey Dyck, Jacob and/or Micah Boehr, and I'm sure others were occasionally roped in as well.

The main band names I can recall were: Highlander Grog (based on what we thought was a manly sounding coffee at Common Grounds), Gutter Goes On (based on an architectural abnormality of a band member's house), and I think the longest-lived was "Obus Ru" (something that came out of Ben's head).

Have you seen any good movies lately? How about any really awful ones?

Yes and no. Bridesmaids, X-Men: First Class, and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 were all pretty great, as I imagine most would agree.

If I could add a somewhat-less-lately pick I would add Inception to the list.

As for the awful, I can't think of any, but I'm a pretty big sucker. I lieu of "aweful" may I mention that the cinematic masterpiece double-feature Ewok Adventures: Caravan of Courage & The Battle for Endor is available for rental on VHS at the Bluffton Public Library, or it was at least, in 1990, when I rented it every week for a year?

Who did you sit beside in the first grade? Who was your teacher?

Oh no. I am sorry if I offend my first grade teacher, but I have no idea.

I understand you've done some world traveling. Tell me about it.

My wife and I really like to travel and/or live in strange places. We spent a few months in Costa Rica while we were in college, and lived in South Korea for a year while teaching English in the public schools.

While living in Korea we were able to travel through China (Beijing, Shanghai), Hong Kong, and were able to spend Christmas on the beach in Thailand.

In an exaggerated example of "taking the scenic route" home we stopped in China, Russia (spending a week or so in Moscow), London, and finally Chicago.

Married? Kids? Pets?

My wife, Jen (Gundy) and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary. So far, taking care of one basil plant has been challenging enough. As it turns out, it's also fun not having any pets.

What car did you take your driver's test in? Where is the car now?

I failed the test numerous times in the glamorous '96 "Ford Green" Tempo, which is yet cruising the streets of Bluffton, but I think I finally ended up passing the test in something else-surely nothing as cool.

Give me your best Josh Weaver story.

Barring any tales of mostly harmless illicit activities involving geese or driving cars in places not originally intended for motorized traffic, the Josh Weaver story that brings me the most delight to this day takes place in the little town of Copan Ruinas, Honduras.

Josh and I were among a group of high school students on a trip to Honduras with the First Mennonite youth group. We were spending our first week studying Spanish and living with host families in the small, rural town of Copan.

One morning, as we reunited at our language school, Josh approached the group shaking his head with a ragged and crazed look in his eye, and proceeded to fill us in on his previous night's adventures. This is what I remember, or whatever his story has become in my own mind at least:

A few hours after falling asleep Josh was startled awake by the sudden realization that his wallet was missing. Mentally tracing back his steps, he came to a decision: rather than lay in bed and stew until dawn, the most prudent thing to do was to get up and go searching blindly around the pitch-black streets of the foreign, third-world town with limited language skills and two hours of sleep.

After fifteen minutes wandering around in the dark Josh thought he might be getting lost. Half an hour later he was defiantly lost, and possibly being tailed by a few feral dogs. An hour later he had found himself somehow in the countryside, and decided he better start jogging, which only emboldens the pack of wild dogs that is now actively chasing him.

He fell in a pothole, he lept through a barbed wire fence, he scrambled wildly through the sleep town catching threatening bits and pieces of drunken jeers in Spanish.

Somehow, Josh did eventually find his way home, and after an embarrassing early-morning wake up call and utterly befuddling explanation to his host family, he found his way back to bed. Most astounding of all, however, was that somewhere out there in his stumbling rampage the missing wallet did appear.

That, at least, is how I choose to remember it.

That is an incredible story and one we've never heard - and will never forget. What's it like growing up in a small town and then living in Columbus?

I really enjoy all of the craziness that the city has to offer, but I do miss the charm of the small town.

Do you ever see anyone from Bluffton in a random meeting in Columbus?

Yes. One time it turned out that person was my mom.

What did living in Bluffton, Ohio, teach you about life?

Growing up in Bluffton taught me that one can never overestimate the value of living in walking distance to an ice-cream stand.